After another lengthy debate, committee members voted 4-4 not to forward along Senate Bill 250, which sought to nullify new federal firearms legislation passed in the wake of the Newtown shooting. The bill also would have made it a crime for federal agents to come into the state to enforce those laws.

The debate roved the landscape of constitutional law far and wide. Monty Python’s Dennis the Constitutional Peasant was quoted, as were the Federalist Papers. A witness who went by the “nom de guerre” Publius Huldah argued that the nation’s framework of constitutional law is suspect and that the Civil War did not settle the question of whether states can nullify laws. She refused to give her real name when asked directly.

Sen. Brian Kelsey, the committee’s new chairman, struggled to keep control of the proceedings. A clear opponent of nullification, the Memphis Republican was unable to sway more members to vote against the bill than a week ago, not even when he read a letter in which several state law enforcement agencies said the do not want to “shoot and kill federal authorities” who come into the state to enforce firearms legislation.

(To that point, the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mae Beavers, added an amendment that lowered the crime of enforcing gun laws to a misdemeanor, so Tennessee police would only have to give the G-men a citation.)

All four of the committee’s lawyers voted against the measure, but with state Sen. Ophelia Ford, D-Memphis, they were unable to muster the fifth vote needed to kill the bill outright. The tie vote means it remains in committee and could be brought up again at another date.

It was enough for Beavers to declare a victory. She said the dispute had been “the best debate we’ve ever had on the Constitution.”